US Presidential Contenders

[Buster's Uncle]

Oh, Rubio seems to be one to watch, but I think this time isn't his shot.

[Buster's Uncle]

What’s behind Bernie Sanders’ enormous rallies
Andrew Romano  West Coast Correspondent  August‎ ‎12‎, ‎2015



Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaks to a sold-out crowd during a campaign event in Los Angeles on Monday. (Photo: Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)



LOS ANGELES — On Monday evening I took an Uber from my house in northeast L.A. to the Memorial Sports Arena just south of downtown. Correction: I took the Uber to exit 20A on the 110 South — the off-ramp closest to the Memorial Sports Arena. There were so many cars heading to the venue that the entire right half of the freeway had become a parking lot. It was almost 7 p.m. — start time. I told my driver, Petros, that I was going to have to get out and walk.

Petros looked puzzled.

“Is something going on tonight?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Bernie Sanders is having a rally.”

Petros still looked puzzled. I set off down the side of the freeway.

I’d come to see Sanders speak out of a sense of professional duty, at least in part. Presidential candidates usually descend on deep blue California for one reason and one reason only: money. They fly in, flutter around  a $40,000-per-head celebrity fundraiser at George Clooney’s house and fly out. Actual rallies with actual voters here are rare. As a Los Angeles-based political reporter, I would have been remiss if I had skipped the first big one in years.

But I’ll admit that I was personally curious as well. At first, many in the press had dismissed Sanders, the 73-year-old Vermont senator and self-described democratic socialist who announced his presidential ambitions in April, as a cranky, irrelevant gadfly. And yet now, three months later, Sanders was  polling at 36 percent in New Hampshire — a mere six points behind Hillary Clinton, the all-but-anointed Democratic nominee. In Iowa he was  already claiming a quarter of the vote. And for weeks he’d been touring cities and college towns around the country, attracting audiences several times larger than anything Clinton or her would-be Republican rivals could hope for — even though people like Petros had never heard of him.

What’s going on? What is a huge Bernie Sanders rally actually like in person? And why are so many progressives suddenly so riled up about a career legislator whose hunched shoulders, messy white hair and gruff Brooklyn yawp they’ve spent the last few decades ignoring on C-SPAN?

After trudging through the trash on the shoulder of the 110 and circumnavigating an endless, gated parking lot, I finally arrived at the arena. My initial impression was that I’d been here before. I attended my first political rally when I was a freshman in college — a concert for Ralph Nader at Madison Square Garden. (A cute girl with an extra ticket invited me at the last minute.) I remember a man who was vowing to fast until Nader, then a Green Party candidate, was allowed to debate George W. Bush and Al Gore. I remember stoned undergrads in “Bush and Gore Make Me Wanna Ralph” T-shirts. I remember dyed green hair. I remember multiple piercings. And I remember a lot of older people — baby boomers who might have once been accused of smelling like patchouli but who now looked just like the conservative churchgoers you’d meet at Republican events.



Presidential candidate Ralph Nader speaks at a Green Party rally at Madison Square Garden in New York in October 2000. (Photo: Evan Agostini/ImageDirect via Getty Images)


The line in L.A. was thousands and thousands of people long — it snaked around the block — and stylistically, it seemed pretty similar. The couple who pulled up in a yellow Corolla with a collage of bumper stickers on the back (“Vote Dammit,” “Equality on My Mind,” “Minecraft,” “Cthulhu”) and “Honk 4 Bernie” and “#TakeBackAmerica” written in red marker on their windows. The skinny, middle-aged African-American man in a black Occupy Wall Street T-shirt and a large black hat. The flip-flops. The backward baseball caps. The beards. The crowd was full of college kids from nearby USC; young, progressive professionals; and liberal retirees in loose-fitting Ralph Lauren. Mostly white, but still fairly diverse. Near the entrance there was the usual rally-going array of activists (“Ferguson is everywhere”) and opportunists (“Feel the Bern” buttons for ONLY $5). As I entered the arena, “Turn! Turn! Turn!” by the Byrds was playing on the PA.

Even Sanders’ speech sounded a lot like Nader’s. Back in 2000, Nader also slammed big business for what he called “a corporate crime wave,” accusing both the Democratic and Republican parties of being controlled by corporations. “Our country has been sold to the highest bidder,” Nader said. “We’re going backwards, while the rich are becoming superrich.” He touted his plans for paid parental leave and paid sick leave. He criticized America for failing to join the rest of the developed world in enacting universal health care. And he railed against the criminal justice system, arguing, “The major public housing project in this country is building prison cells.” Afterward, voter Thomas King, then 22, contrasted Nader with that year’s Democratic Senate nominee from New York. “I’m not too pleased with the fact that [Hillary] Clinton and the New Democrats have moved so close to the center,” King told the New York Times. “This is a populist movement.”

Hearing Sanders speak on Monday about an economy that is “rigged … to benefit the people on top,” about how he “can’t be bought” by corporations, about how it “makes a lot more sense to be investing in education than incarceration,” about how it’s an “international embarrassment” that the U.S. doesn’t have “Medicare for all,” and about how his “family values,” unlike the GOP’s, encompass paid leave for parents, I couldn’t help but feel a little déjà vu — even if the crowd roared after every line like they’d never encountered another candidate willing to say these kinds of things.



Sanders supporters cheer at his campaign rally at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena on Monday. (Photo: Charles Ommanney/The Washington Post via Getty Images)


Sanders has real appeal for progressives craving an alternative to Clinton: the dogged consistency, the ambitious policy prescriptions, the rumpled authenticity. All of that came across more clearly on the stump than it ever does on TV.

But Nader was rumpled and authentic, too.That’s why I was more interested Monday in the two big differences on display in Los Angeles between Sanders and his anti-corporate predecessor — not to mention every other major outsider candidate who’s come before, whether conservative (like Ross Perot), libertarian (like Ron Paul) or liberal (like Robert La Follette).

The first difference was the sheer size of the event. As soon as Sanders waddled onstage in Los Angeles, he announced that “more than 27,000” people were in attendance. Such claims are impossible to verify, but the 16,000-seat arena was nearly full, and thousands more were watching in overflow areas outside the venue. The rally looked (and sounded) massive — more like a deafening, ecstatic, slightly drunken rock concert than a fringe political gathering. And the L.A. event wasn’t an isolated incident. Roughly 28,000 people showed up for Sanders’ rally in Portland, Ore., on Sunday. He drew 15,000 in Seattle; 11,000 in Phoenix; 10,000 in Madison, Wis.; 8,000 in Dallas; and 4,500 in New Orleans. All told, Sanders has  attracted more than 100,000 people to his campaign events in recent weeks.

That’s completely unprecedented this early in a presidential primary cycle. (The election is still 15 months away.) For comparison’s sake, Clinton’s biggest crowd so far this year was 5,500. There were 15,000 people at the Nader concert I saw in 2000 — but that was three weeks before Election Day. Paul’s storied 2008 and 2012  crowds topped out around 10,000. Sanders is even surpassing Barack Obama’s revolutionary 2008 campaign. In February 2007, Obama drew 20,000 people to Town Lake in Austin, Texas; in April, he attracted 20,000 to an outdoor rally at Yellow Jacket Park in Atlanta; and in September, 24,000  came to see him speak in New York’s Washington Square Park. But Obama rallies didn’t pass the 28,000 mark until 2008.

The second difference on display Monday was what I’ll call the “responsiveness” of Sanders’ campaign. For the first few months after he entered the contest, Sanders largely shied away from issues of racial equality: bias in policing, mass incarceration, voting rights, the treatment of unauthorized immigrants. In July, Sanders, who has always been “all about unions, corporations — basically economic issues rather than cultural ones,” according to an old friend and early political confidant, appeared at Netroots Nation and frustrated civil rights activists when he answered questions about racial issues by pivoting back to economic ones. “Black lives of course matter,” he said defensively after he was interrupted by Black Lives Matter protesters. “If you don’t want me to be here, that’s OK.” In Seattle last weekend,  another group of Black Lives Matter protesters took the stage and refused to let Sanders speak.



Sanders speaks at the rally at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena on Monday. (Photo: Ringo H.W. Chiu/AP)


Sanders has a reputation for self-righteousness, and initially he seemed to be sticking to his “it’s a class problem not a race problem” script. But in the weeks since Netroots Nation, something seems to have changed. First, the candidate took a meeting with Symone Sanders (no relation), a young black organizer with the D.C.-based Coalition for Juvenile Justice. He  listened to her unsolicited advice on racial issues. Then he offered her a job as his national press secretary. A day after being interrupted in Seattle, the candidate  released a sweeping policy platform designed to combat racial inequality. And in Portland and Los Angeles, Symone Sanders debuted as the new public face of the campaign, emceeing each event and introducing her boss to his supporters.

“It’s very important that we say those words: ‘black lives matter,’” Symone Sanders said in L.A. “It’s also important that people in office turn those words into action.”

A few minutes later, Bernie Sanders pledged to do just that. “One year after the death of Michael Brown,” he said from the podium, “there’s no candidate who will fight harder to end institutional racism.”

Ultimately, these two differences — the mind-boggling size of Sanders’ early campaign events and the speed with which he has reshuffled his campaign in response to activists’ concerns — may have less to do with the messenger himself, or his message, than the changing world Sanders is now trying to reach, and the tools he now has at his disposal to reach it.

Nearly eight years ago, I wrote a story for Newsweek about the rise of what some observers were then referring to as “long tail” candidates for president. (The phrase was a reference to the theory, popularized by Wired editor Chris Anderson, that “our economy and culture is shifting from mass markets to million of niches.”) My argument was that we were beginning to move away from the two-sizes-fit-all categories of Democrat and Republican and toward a more personalized, motley politics.

“As the Web allows niche voters to form communities, raise money and get heard,” I wrote, “it’s inevitable that the major-party machines will clash with — and ultimately accommodate — the individualized constituencies they’re struggling to serve.”

The experts I talked to made a couple of predictions. First, that “unlike their predecessors, the next generation of niche politicians won’t necessarily choose the third-party route. Instead, tomorrow’s most successful narrowcasters will likely run as major-party candidates in the primaries, where widely seen debates and easy ballot access will bring exposure and credibility.” Second, while long-tail candidates won’t win the White House anytime soon, “their niche concerns and vocal supporters will demand unprecedented attention” — and mainstream politicians will begin to mine their more marginal counterparts for ideas (and votes).

The sense I got Monday is that the Sanders campaign is the first full realization of this concept. Instagram didn’t exist when Obama launched his presidential campaign in 2007. The iPhone had yet to be released. Twitter still hadn’t taken off. Facebook was a way to connect with your real-life friends — not a global hub for news, marketing and politics.



A supporter takes pictures during the Sanders rally in Los Angeles  on Monday. (Photo: Ringo H.W. Chiu/AP)


Since then, social media has permeated every aspect of our lives. It’s become our constant mobile companion. It basically is the media at this point — the main way we absorb information about what’s happening in the world. And that, in turn, has amplified the long-tail effect on presidential politics. When every candidate is in your pocket all the time, it’s easier to find the one who seems to speak for you; when your feed is full of friends echoing your political passions, it’s easier to feel like you’re part of something bigger than yourself — a “political revolution,” as Sanders put in Los Angeles. Nothing is fringe; everything feels mainstream. And when activists revolt, a candidate can’t help but hear; every criticism is reposted, regrammed and retweeted until it becomes impossible to ignore.

That’s a big part of the reason why more than 27,000 people showed up to see Sanders speak in Los Angeles: because everyone seemed to be going. And it’s a big part of the reason why Sanders shifted his stance on racial justice so quickly as well: because everyone seemed to be complaining.

As I was leaving the Memorial Sports Arena Monday night, I met a man named Steve Smith. He’d caravanned into the city from Azusa with his wife and four friends. I asked him what he thought of the rally.

“It was absolutely electrifying — like seeing Zeppelin or the Who,” said Smith, 61. “Compare this to Hillary — a couple hundred people with zero enthusiasm. Sanders is the horse to keep your eye on. He’s the only candidate I know who can get huge numbers of the under-25s out to vote. The others don’t stand a chance.”

I was going to ask whether Smith really thought Sanders could upend the system — whether the senator from Vermont could do what Nader, Perot and Paul had failed to do — or whether that was just how it seemed on a warm night in Southern California, surrounded by tens of thousands of hopeful supporters streaming north through Exposition Park. But then I noticed him sniffing the air.

I sniffed too. Somebody was smoking pot.

“A familiar smell!” said Smith. He grinned. “Not bad at all.”

[Rusty Edge]

This gives me hope against Hillary and Citizen's United.

[Unorthodox]

Note the use of an unappealing pic of Senator Sanders with the article, instead of the obvious one:



...This happens constantly in what little coverage I find of him...

Hm.  Got to disagree with you on that particular case.  The pic you post is NOT a good pic.  Unless photoshop can save it from the woes of the camera/operator flaws that took it. 

[vonbach]

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/257697-[Sleezebag]-nears-100-days-on-top

[Sleezebag] nears 100 days on top

Donald [Sleezebag] is closing in on 100 days atop the Republican primary polls.

The billionaire candidate has led every major national Republican poll since late July, and a raft of new surveys released this week reveals that [Sleezebag]’s support has held steady over those months, while his underlying fundamentals have improved.

The race has tightened somewhat, as Ben Carson has enjoyed a similar upward trajectory and even overtaken [Sleezebag] in one new poll of Iowa. However, the retired neurosurgeon is the only candidate within shouting distance of [Sleezebag] nationally or in the early voting states and remains firmly in second place in most polls.
Republicans and Beltway media elites, once hesitant to take [Sleezebag]’s campaign seriously, now acknowledge him as a legitimate contender in the races for the Republican nomination and the White House.

“All of us dismissed [Sleezebag] early on. A summer fling, momentary amusement,” “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace said after interviewing [Sleezebag] over the weekend. “As I watch that interview … I am beginning to believe he could be elected president of the United States.”

All aboard the [Sleezebag] train. 

[Buster's Uncle]

Chafee ends his presidential campaign
Associated Press  October‎ ‎23‎, ‎2015



WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee is ending his Democratic presidential campaign.

In prepared remarks before an appearance before the Democratic National Committee, Chafee said he is dropping out.

Chafee delivered a widely panned debate performance earlier this month. He has struggled to raise money and gain traction against Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

The former U.S. senator called himself a "block of granite" when it came to issues during the debate and has highlighted his opposition to the Iraq war.

https://www.yahoo.com/politics/chafee-ends-presidential-campaign-122809026--election.html

[Yitzi]

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/257697-[Sleezebag]-nears-100-days-on-top

[Sleezebag] nears 100 days on top

Donald [Sleezebag] is closing in on 100 days atop the Republican primary polls.

The billionaire candidate has led every major national Republican poll since late July, and a raft of new surveys released this week reveals that [Sleezebag]’s support has held steady over those months, while his underlying fundamentals have improved.

The race has tightened somewhat, as Ben Carson has enjoyed a similar upward trajectory and even overtaken [Sleezebag] in one new poll of Iowa. However, the retired neurosurgeon is the only candidate within shouting distance of [Sleezebag] nationally or in the early voting states and remains firmly in second place in most polls.
Republicans and Beltway media elites, once hesitant to take [Sleezebag]’s campaign seriously, now acknowledge him as a legitimate contender in the races for the Republican nomination and the White House.

“All of us dismissed [Sleezebag] early on. A summer fling, momentary amusement,” “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace said after interviewing [Sleezebag] over the weekend. “As I watch that interview … I am beginning to believe he could be elected president of the United States.”

All aboard the [Sleezebag] train. 

The thing is, [Sleezebag] is so much more different from the other candidates than they are from each other that it's very possible that as people drop out most of their support will go to people other than [Sleezebag], leaving him behind.

[Buster's Uncle]

Sanders getting ‘a little more pointed’ on Clinton, but not ‘negative’
Hunter Walker  National Correspondent  October‎ ‎25‎, ‎2015



Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks to guests at the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner Saturday in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images)



DES MOINES, Iowa — Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., went on the offensive at the Iowa Democratic Party’s annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner, where he delivered a speech that highlighted former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s shifting positions. His performance earned headlines dubbing him “fiery” and “bare-knuckle.” However, his campaign insists the remarks aren’t the beginning of an all-out attack on Clinton in their race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Sanders’ press secretary, Symone Sanders, told Yahoo News on Sunday that she was surprised by some of the coverage of his speech.

“I saw some reports saying, you know, ‘Oh, the senator like smacked Hillary, slapped Hillary, attacked her.’ Those were not slaps, attacks and smacks, but they were differentiating on the issues,” Symone said. “The senator has a really strong record to stand on, so he’s going to stand on it.”

Clinton is the frontrunner in the Democratic primary, but state and national polls show Sanders is her top rival.

Sanders’ speech included lines that alluded to Clinton’s vote for the Iraq War when she was in the Senate, her long pauses before announcing opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline and Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement and the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act during the administration of her husband, President Bill Clinton. Symone pointed out that Sanders began an effort to “differentiate” his record from his opponent’s heading into the Democratic presidential debate on Oct. 13. While she acknowledged he may have sharpened his approach, Symone vowed Sanders will not “directly attack” Clinton.

“I think what folks saw last night, you know, was Bernie came out and was being a little more pointed in his record, if you will. … Prior to last night, he had not drawn as stark a contrast of where he stands as opposed to the other candidates. I think that is definitely true,” Symone explained. “Folks that have said, ‘Bernie came out of the gate and said where he stands.’ Yes, he did, so I don’t think you haven’t seen that, but you won’t see him directly attack.”

In an interview on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” on Sunday, the day after the dinner, Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta suggested Sanders broke prior vows not to “go negative” with his speech.

“I think Bernie Sanders seemed to have a course correction in the JJ dinner from one in which he said he wasn’t going to go negative to obviously focusing his … fire on her,” said Podesta.

However, Symone specifically said Sanders will not go “negative” and begin criticizing Clinton by name.

“He has never done a negative attack ad in his life, and he has never gone on a negative campaign,” Symone said. “Bernie’s not going to start doing these interviews talking about how, ‘Secretary Clinton’s bad on blah blah blah.’ You know, you’ll never probably hear those words come out of his mouth. And what you will hear is him saying, you know, ‘I believe climate change is the greatest threat to our national security, so it didn’t take me four years to get a position on Keystone.’”

Symone framed Sanders’ Jefferson-Jackson dinner speech as an effort to “highlight his record.”

“I think that’s important to voters to know, especially for people that don’t know the senator, to know … where he stands on these trade agreements,” said Symone. “Not just the Trans-Pacific partnership but, you know, NAFTA, CAFTA and the permanent normal trade agreement with China.”

According to Symone, it would be wrong to view Sanders’ comments on Keystone, various trade agreements, the Iraq War and DOMA as “Hillary zingers.”

“These were just the facts,” she said.

Symone also pointed to the moment in the Democratic debate where Sanders famously declared the American people had had “enough” of hearing about the scandal over Clinton’s emails. Clinton thanked Sanders onstage, and her campaign later told Yahoo News it felt like the moment was “an assist” from Sanders.

“He calls it like he sees it,” Symone said. “So he can go ahead and defend her and say, ‘Look, Americans are tired of these damn emails, they want to talk about the issues.’ Secretary’s, like, ‘Yeah.’ He’s like, ‘OK, but also, Americans are tired of these disastrous trade policies.’ And that might make some people uncomfortable, but you know what? Bernie was speaking truth to power. That’s what makes him so real and authentic.”

https://www.yahoo.com/politics/sanders-getting-a-little-more-pointed-on-175507987.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Lindsey Graham on GOP field: ‘How am I losing to these people?’
Yahoo
Michael Walsh  ‎October‎ ‎26‎, ‎2015



Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., speaks during a No Labels Problem Solver Convention in October in Manchester, N.H. (Photo: Jim Cole/AP)



South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham says he cannot fathom how real estate magnate Donald [Sleezebag] and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson are dominating the GOP presidential primaries.

Graham provided cutting assessments of their lack of political experience, foreign policies and overall temperaments during a wide-ranging interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Monday.

“On our side, you’ve got the No. 2 guy [who] tried to kill someone at 14, and the No. 1 is high energy and crazy as hell. How am I losing to these people?” he said.

The Republican presidential candidate, who has been struggling in national polls, was referring to the time when Carson stabbed one of his high school classmates, an incident he has discussed openly.

Toward the end of the interview, Graham joked that he should start moving up in the polls because he — unlike Carson — has never tried to kill anyone.

“And I’ve tried to murder no one ever, so this should move me up a little bit,” he joked. “Well, the day’s not over, but as of right now, nobody.”

Graham has outlined his approach to national security, the central issue to his campaign, in great detail. He blamed [Sleezebag]’s and Carson’s political inexperience for what he considers to be misguided or grossly underdeveloped foreign policies.

“Just look at Donald [Sleezebag]’s foreign policy. What is it? What is he going to do about ISIL? What is it? What is it? What is his game plan to destroy ISIL? Does anybody know?” he said.



Graham, right, watches as he and Sen. John McCain play the roulette wheel at a charitable gaming poker room in October in Manchester, N.H. (Photo: Jim Cole/AP)


[Sleezebag] has said he would bomb the oil fields in Iraq and Syria to take away the Islamic State’s wealth, but has repeatedly declined to elaborate on his strategy because he feels publicly discussing military strategy helps the enemy.

As for immigration — the issue [Sleezebag] dragged to the forefront while announcing his candidacy — Graham called the party frontrunner’s position “hateful and illogical.”

“There’s a reason 75 percent of Hispanics disapprove of this guy,” he said. “We will get slaughtered if he’s the nominee. So if you give a damn about winning, pick someone who doesn’t dig the hole deeper with Hispanics.”

As the election draws closer, Graham said, experience will start to matter more and people will realize that these candidates who have never held elected office are not prepared to be commander in chief.

“Like Ben Carson said he would have declared energy independence as the reactions of 9/11. That’s kind of different,” he said. “You know, ‘I hereby declare,’ you know, bullhorn out here at the World Trade Center, ‘I hereby declare energy independence’ is not what I would be looking for. I think Bush got it right. So, Dr. Carson is a fine man. But his foreign policy is hard for me to follow.”

Primary polls consistently show [Sleezebag] and Carson in the first and second spots, respectively. Graham, on the other hand, is usually floundering toward the bottom of the pack.

An Ipsos/Reuters poll released last Wednesday showed that if the election were held today, 31 percent of Republicans would vote for [Sleezebag], 18 percent would vote for Carson and only 1 percent would vote for Graham.

https://www.yahoo.com/politics/lindsey-graham-on-gop-field-how-am-i-losing-to-150953390.html

[vonbach]

As for immigration — the issue [Sleezebag] dragged to the forefront while announcing his candidacy — Graham called the party frontrunner’s position “hateful and illogical.”

This is why you are losing.

“There’s a reason 75 percent of Hispanics disapprove of this guy,” he said. “We will get slaughtered if he’s the nominee. So if you give a damn about winning, pick someone who doesn’t dig the hole deeper with Hispanics.”

Why are Republicans spitting on their own base to pander to a people that don't vote for them?

[Buster's Uncle]

Your debate scorecard for the Republican presidential debate in Colorado
Yahoo Politics
Jon Ward  Senior Political Correspondent  ‎October‎ ‎28‎, ‎2015



UFC middleweight fighter Vitor Belfort poses with presidential candidate Ben Carson in Florida Tuesday. Belfort is endorsing Carson. (Photo: Susan Stocker/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)


Ben Carson is surging, but what will voters think of him as they take a closer look? Donald [Sleezebag] is falling behind Carson in Iowa and is none too happy about it. Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush are jostling for position and could be headed for a showdown. The Republican field has one less candidate since the second debate of this campaign six weeks ago. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is gone. Now Bush is on the ropes. Here is a rundown on where the race stands and what each of the candidates needs to do Wednesday night inside the Coors Center on the campus of the University of Colorado to stay competitive.


Donald [Sleezebag]

26.8 percent in national polling / 20.6 percent in Iowa / 29.5 percent in New Hampshire

He has been No. 1 in the Real Clear Politics average of all national polling since July 20, a total of more than 100 days. But he is falling like a rock in Iowa and has dropped behind retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson. The process by which political parties actually select their nominee — also known as reality — is starting to catch up to the Donald. And he has begun to lash out. At first he denied that Carson was actually beating him in Iowa, which goes first in the primary process. But two more polls came out after [Sleezebag] argued to Matt Lauer on Monday morning that the Iowa polling was an anomaly. [Sleezebag] will have to face the facts and has already begun to go after Carson on abortion. That’s a smarter tactic than raising questions about Carson’s membership in the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, but in a debate [Sleezebag] could probably go any direction if he thinks he can take Carson down.


Ben Carson

22 percent / 29.2 percent / 14 percent

It’s been an amazing two-month stretch for Carson. For all of September and early October, he kept pace with [Sleezebag] as the No. 2 candidate in national polling. But now he is taking on the aura of a frontrunner. He is ahead of [Sleezebag] by an average of 10 points in the last several polls and overtook [Sleezebag] in national polling for the first time on Tuesday. Carson has never experienced the kind of pressure he’ll be under on the debate stage in Boulder, with many of the other candidates gunning for him. In addition to [Sleezebag]’s broadsides, look for conservatives like Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to take shots at Carson’s past actions and statements on abortion. In particular, they’ll zero in on the fact that Carson has referred patients to doctors for abortions and that his campaign has defended him for doing so.



Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio speaks last week in Salt Lake City. (Photo: Rick Bowmer/AP)


Marco Rubio

9 percent / 10.2 percent / 8.3 percent

The Florida senator’s campaign high command probably couldn’t have planned their candidate’s trajectory to this point any better. Actually, they did plan it, and they’re right where they want to be: still out of the harsh spotlight that comes with being the frontrunner but right in striking distance as the race heads into the final three months before Iowa. Rubio’s formula for these debates is incredibly simple: deliver his talking points with ease and style, crack a few jokes and flash that easy grin, and avoid squabbles with other candidates. One problem this time: Jeb Bush may be looking for a fight. Bush may need to knock Rubio down in order to reassure donors and supporters that he has what it takes to claim the backing of the establishment wing of the party. Bush advisers have already previewed the line of attack on Rubio that Bush is likely to make: that Rubio is a Republican version of President Obama, an inexperienced senator who can give a good speech but has shown little leadership ability and would be out of his league in the highest office in the land.


Jeb Bush

7 percent / 6.2 percent / 9 percent

It will be interesting to see which Jeb Bush shows up in Colorado. Does he continue to let his id out as he did over the weekend in South Carolina, and to hell with the consequences? Or does he continue to rein himself in as he did in the first two debates? Does he go after Rubio to assert himself with the establishment wing? Does he take the fight to [Sleezebag]? Can he? So far it’s been unclear. Bush clearly doesn’t relish the more martial element of politics. He’s not a brawler. But he may need to become one to rescue himself from what increasingly is looking like a campaign death spiral. Look for him also to use his newly released plan to reform entitlements to press other candidates on what they’d do to solve one of the biggest challenges facing the nation, one that politicians running for office are often loath to weigh in on.


Ted Cruz

6.6 percent / 9.6 percent / 5.5 percent

Cruz has been waiting a long time now for [Sleezebag] and Carson to implode so he can snatch up their supporters. He can wait a while longer. He’s got plenty of cash. But of anyone in the field, he has the greatest incentive to sow doubt among conservatives about Carson’s conservative credentials. Iowa is fertile ground for Cruz, and he won’t want Carson to get too much momentum there. On the other hand, it’s still very early in Carson’s rise to the top of the polls, and Cruz has some time to see how things shake out without taking the risk of attacking Carson openly.



Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina, left, with assistant Rebecca Schieber, at a University of Iowa football game in September. (Photo: Charlie Neibergall/AP)


Carly Fiorina

5.8 percent / 3.8 percent / 7.8 percent

A common headline these days is “What happened to Carly Fiorina?” She has starred in both Republican debates so far, and after the second she rose to third place in national polling. She’s still at the bottom of the upper tier of candidates, but a pattern of boom and bust is not sustainable. She’ll have to figure out how to maintain any rise in the polls she gets out of Wednesday night.


Mike Huckabee

3.8 percent / 2 percent / 1 percent

Huckabee is the highest-polling member of the Can’t Rise Caucus: the eight Republicans who have been stuck most of the primary at no higher than 3 or 4 percent. Each of them is battling some ceiling that is unique to them. For Huckabee, it’s the fact that he won the Iowa caucuses in 2008 but didn’t win the nomination. Early primary state voters want to pick a winner, so Huckabee’s failure to win it all eight years ago is an obstacle to his winning Iowa again. In addition, he has been a lackluster candidate so far, raising questions about whether his bid is just an effort to kick-start book sales and his cable TV career. He’s had some solid endorsements in Iowa recently from pastors and homeschooling leaders — communities that helped fuel his win last time he ran — but at 2 percent he’s worse off in Hawkeye State polling than he is in the national surveys.


Rand Paul

3.4 percent / 3.8 percent / 4.3 percent

When the main storyline about your campaign is that the Senate majority leader of your own party, who has endorsed your presidential candidacy, is pressuring you to abandon your run for the White House, that’s suboptimal. Paul desperately needs a major course correction.



Republican presidential candidate and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, right, in New Hampshire earlier this month. (Photo: Brian Snyder/Reuters)


John Kasich

2.6 percent / 2 percent / 7 percent

The third member of the Can’t Rise Caucus took some heated shots at [Sleezebag] and Carson on Tuesday in Ohio, his home state, calling their ideas “crazy.” Consider that a heads-up that there will be more fireworks Wednesday night from the outspoken governor and former member of Congress. Kasich is more than capable of going off. His advisers may have decided it’s time to let the dog out.


Chris Christie

2.4 percent / 1.2 percent / 3.3 percent

The charismatic New Jersey governor has to believe that at some point he’ll get a shot. So far he hasn’t found an opening. It seems unlikely he will go the entire campaign without some moment where he gets a second look from voters. Like Kasich, Christie has so far kept his sometimes volatile personality in check. If Kasich lets loose, Christie might want to let him go first. Unless Christie can’t afford to stay in the race financially, he’s probably better off biding his time a bit longer before trying to make a move.


Lindsey Graham, Rick Santorum and Bobby Jindal

1 percent (2.8 percent for Jindal in Iowa)

Graham’s “How am I losing to these people?” line was a good one, but he remains without a path to the nomination. Santorum and Jindal, meanwhile, continue to toil away in Iowa with the hope that they can surprise people and finish in the top three there on Feb. 1. There’s still time for that, but so far they’re still stuck in nowheresville in the polls, except for a few recent positive showings by Jindal in some surveys.


George Pataki

0.2 percent / 0.0 percent / 0.3 percent

Don Quixote remains.

https://www.yahoo.com/politics/your-debate-scorecard-for-the-1287472602374198.html

[vonbach]

http://prntly.com/blog/2015/10/15/official-october-electoral-map-gloom-for-dems-joy-for-[Sleezebag]/

Official October Electoral Map: gloom for Dems, joy for [Sleezebag]

[Unorthodox]

Just sayin'

[vonbach]

Yes illegal aliens and voter intimidation won Obama the election whats your point.
If Romney had had Reagan's demographics he'd have won.

[Unorthodox]

My point is it's stupid early for such maps made from questionable sources, and labelled "official".

Based on an average of the RCP polling data from all the states and all the “head to head” matchups between Donald [Sleezebag] (by far the winner of the GOP) and Hillary Clinton (The winner of the Democratic Party) shows bad news for the Democrats.

North Carolina is literally the first state with a head to head poll from RCP in historical order of their poll page and shows Clinton leading, while the map has it firmly red. 

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/nc/north_carolina_trump_vs_clinton-5538.html

I don't care enough or have time to check any others. 

Now, [Sleezebag] Costumes are DOMINATING Halloween sales.  In an election year this is 100% accurate on determining the winner.  Don't know if anyone has even tracked the year prior sales vs election results before.